She hated the talk about money: for she had all that contempt for it which women have who have never felt the want of it. It would have been so simple if the intruder had only wanted money. She would not have cared a little bit if Luke had none, or was not going to have any. It was his right which she would not hear of being questioned; his right in Lord Radclyffe's affections, in his household, and also his rights in the future when Lord Radclyffe would be gone.
"You are sure," she insisted, "that he does not want money?"
"I don't think," he replied, "that he does, just now. He seems to have a little; he must have had a little, since he came over from St. Vincent and is staying at a moderately good hotel in London. No. He wants to see Uncle Rad, because he thinks that, if Uncle Rad saw him, blood would cry out in response. It appears that now he has lodged all his papers of identification with a London lawyer—a very good firm, mind you—and he wants Uncle Rad's solicitor to see all the papers and to examine them. That seems fair to me, doesn't it to you?"
"Very fair indeed," she mused.
"What I mean," he added with great conviction, "is that if those papers weren't all right, he wouldn't be so anxious for Uncle Rad's solicitors to have a look at them, would he?"
"No."
And after awhile she reiterated more emphatically.
"Certainly not."
"I must say," he concluded, "that the whole thing simply beats me."
"But what does Lord Radclyffe say now?"